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The ones that got away

London slips away behind us as we head
north and east.Back out through suburbs
served and invented by the tube.

Slow traffic.Red light disappointment.Green light anticipation.

Creeping past houses with small gardens and
smart cars.Paused before shops with
ghost signs, showing generations of economic change; markers of waves of
migration that has made this place what it is today.

How easy would it be to map the history of
London by looking at the names of shop owners and the brands of the products
they sell? Post war migration, postcolonial economics, suburban decay and
gentrification told through shop fronts and label fonts.

We move out past the ring fence of the
M25:a boundary in both directions.How many of those inside look beyond the pale
to greener lands – an escape to the country – and how many outside look inwards
towards activity, jobs and mythically lined streets.Sitting in stationary traffic brings far more
questions than answers.

The spaces between the houses start to grow.Fields, long unploughed, ringed with falling
wire fences, back onto new housing estates and dormitory houses.Tall grass grows beside the fence posts and
the wires sprout occasional plastic bags.This hinterland – neither rural nor urban – is strange to travel
through; it looks unloved, yet full of possibility.Edgelands.Unofficial Countryside. Places that fail the categorisation of the
worlds they border yet are home and hearth to many both wild and tamed.Few who live on either side of these places pause
within it.It’s a zone of transmission
and transience.It’s a zone often as unobserved
as it is unloved.Horses stand with
their backs to the wind.Magpies, more
blue than black, and midnight crows find a living here from the wastes of others.Pairs of mothers pass an hour pushing their
children in buggies.We are passing
through, and they seem to be going elsewhere as well.It’s a land of change and transit.

We take the road to Norwich. The fields
grow greener.Small woodlands, once in
the distance, now push at the roadside.We pass the county boundary; Norfolk.I know less of this place than even London, having never been here
before.

The England I knew was west and north,
hills and mountains of sorts, the domain of oak, damp with winds and rain from
the Atlantic.This east is
different.Flat. Fertile. Fenland. Fast
formed and flood wracked by season. A landscape more made by man than
many.A landscape that turns around the
far and obvious spires and towers of churches.And a landscape, distorted by six months of growing excitement, which is
home to fish of many species.

Walnut Tree Cottage looked wonderful on the
web, but an address of “Main
Road” has me worried.The naming tree
sits to one side of the crunchy gravel drive and is paired with a huge mulberry
tree behind the house.The berries are
ready to fall, the nuts await autumn. And it’s almost silent. Sparrow cheeps,
swallow twitters and the rattle of stones scattered by a pup of a dog called
Tudds don’t count.After about ten
minutes it occurs to me you could probably play family cricket out on the Main
Road and be in little danger.I assume
that this was a Main Road in the days when horsepower ate oats and spent the
night, curry combed and washed, in stable outbuildings.But today it seems just an honorary
title.

We move
from modern car to a 17th century house, with welcoming hosts, and most
welcome tea.The rooms are historically
small, cool in summer, snug against the eastern wind of winter; wooden stair
steps that speak now and then, flags solid and foot polished on the floor, low
ceilings and double filled bookcases with a section of maps and walking
guides.This could have been the house I
was born in, except this one had functional heating, hot water and plumbing
that worked.And if anything else was
needed to show this was a here and now very different from that then and there,
a splendid breakfast appeared everyday, spread over a table covered with cloth
and furnished with fruit, toast and jam.Our hosts seemed visibly disappointed that we never took up the offer of
a cooked breakfast to line the stomach – and the arteries - against the risks
of the coming day.I concede that may
have been a mistake, but my doctor would have approved.

In the warm
dull hours of late afternoon we head north.Here, with almost mapmaker precision, the coast runs due east/west.Facing out into the North Sea, this is an
area of fierce winter storms and winds made sharp by the shallow, cold water.And surprisingly along this coastal fringe
lie a number of holiday towns. Or at
least towns that in years gone by would have aspired to that title.Towns that flourished before people fled their
pebble beaches and summer rain for the Spanish Costas.Towns emptied by package deals from Luton airport
and Thomas Cook. Towns with long piers and promenades, both of which allowed
you to walk to nowhere in particular, and having got there, turn around and
walk back.

Cromer
seems to be a town split in two:away
from the sea the streets are straight and wide, meeting at right angles, giving
views of nothing much more than the other side of the street.The houses themselves look solid and heavy,
adapted to the cold winter winds, but over built for a warm summer
afternoon.They look like prime
candidates for bed and breakfasts, hanging on against economic downturns and
the tides of fashion.But there are few
signs in the windows and none in the four square garden blocks; the streets
look old and tired.There are no people
to be seen. The streets look closed.

Down
towards the sea the character changes; streets meet at odd angles and pubs and
cafes occupy corner blocks.There are
more, but not many, people.They look in
shop windows and wonder out loud about the choice of haddock or cod.Later experience suggests that the best
choice would have been neither.The
streets, clean, bright and oddly empty, center on the flint built church, where
rounds are cobbled into straight lines and sharp corners.The graveyard is wild with flowers, bright
and real in a way that the town seems not to be.Yellows and reds against the grey
stones.Life in a place of death.A strange source of possibility for a town
down on its luck, swimming against the tide.

The beach
itself is the best part – flint cobbles and crabbing boats, pulled up against
the wall by rusty old tractors.This is
old but alive, fading but active.We
pile stones one upon another, tower building in the Goldsworthy style.Large to small, the uneven stacked back to
back to form a kind of stability.One
flint seems to have a worked edge.Is
this just a fluke caused by the random collision of sea stones – or was it
worked by an old, old hand when the cliffs were hills overlooking grasslands
and the sea was distant?

If the stone
was a tool, and I think it was, it seems strange to hold in my hand a blade
from the time when all things started.An artifact from a culture that dealt with change in ways that are not
open to us.In a town that might be at
the end of its time, I collect a sharp stone that has been tumbled and turned,
edged and held from the distant past.

My stone
tower topples.The wind chills as the
sun sinks.It’s time to leave.

Cromer faces
great challenges, but somewhere between the growth of its flowers and the roll
of its stone it needs to find a way forward.

Later in
the week we return to this stretch of coast – and forewarned we decide to avoid
the seaside towns, and head for wilder coasts.At Holcombe a wide expanse of sand sits between pine trees and the
sea.In the trees shredded cones suggest
a healthy population of squirrels, and on the beach footprints are over written
by hoof marks; the flat sand an inviting walk or an exciting canter.The kids choose the sea, and I choose a more
inland path. We synchronize watches,
agree a time and a place to meet and go our separate ways.

My footpath
wanders along the boundary of the pines and open fields.Dark places to my right and open bright
fields to my left.Butterflies seem to
favor the left, where more flowers bloom and the sunlight warms their
wings.On my return journey this pattern
will be reversed, but the outward leg suits my state of mind, and makes me
smile. The pines are not dark enough to be Mirky, but they are uninviting.A path through brambles – for once not a weed
in need of control – allows me to look over the fields and hedges to my left.

A large
brown bird drifts into view from behind one of the hedges. Lazy unconcerned
flaps and long glides.Wings held in a
shallow vee above its back, a hunter’s dihedral; a marsh harrier.Soon a darker bird, with the same flight and
grace, joins it.The first bird pairs
and quarters with the second and even I can hear the startled calls of the
small birds they pass over. The dark bird slides from view and its pale
companion keeps hunting.Flap and
glide.Flap and glide. Slight changes to
the angles of the birds wings sends it twisting down towards some unseen prey.Gone.

Not so long
ago this would have been a remarkable sight, but this is a bird that is
fighting back against the tides of landscape change.We have bought cheap reliable food at the
price of small and ragged places, unkempt corners and the homes of March
Harriers.Riches and security come at a
high price, but have uniform, unblemished apples and out of season fruit been
bought at too great a cost?Full
stomachs (for many, but never all) sit below minds robbed of the possibility of
chance encounters, wild encounters.Hunger
is not ennobling, but neither is the loss of wildness and contact.The harrier reappears from the long grass,
an unidentified ball of fur or feathers gripped in its talons.The rough lands near the sea feed two
needs.Back on the path White Admirals
rest in the summer sunlight.Time rushes
past; with the tower bird hide not yet in view, I walk faster.

The steps up to the hide are steep, mossy
and a little greasy; the door creaks as it opens.I’m surprised to find someone else in there. I’m even more surprised that he seems to be
marking exam papers; I recognise the disappointed sigh as he reads another
answer that seems to miss the point, or was written by somebody who missed the
class.I say “hello”, but he does not
even look up.He must find marking even
harder than I did.

A harrier drifts past in the distance.Ducks – mallard – pladge in a pool of shallow
water in front of the hide.My companion
sighs again.A few hundred meters away a
deeper pond holds more duck, coot and a lone grey heron.At the back of the pond – at the extreme
range for comfortable viewing – are a group of white birds.I expect them to be egrets, a bird that has
only become regular in England in the years since I left in the 1990s.For me a group of these birds would have been
highlight enough, but even at an uncomfortable distance it’s clear that these
birds are bit egrets.

Unconsciously helpful, one of the birds
moves a little closer and holds its head so the bill becomes a silhouette.A long bill that bulges at its end to a round
disk – the birds are spoonbills.There
are at least eight birds, possibly more around a corner in a hidden part of the
pool.The birds feed in loose groups of
twos and threes, sweeping their spoon bills through the water, taking in the
thick parts of the summer soup.I find
the silence of my companion difficult, and I ask if he has seen the
spoonbills.I get a single syllable
reply; “yes”.I look back to the spoonbills just in time to
see the marsh harrier fly over them.Neither seems to notice the other.

Here in one flooded field we have recovery
and expansion.Both are caused by human
change. The harrier, the beneficiary of conscious change, the spoonbills
inadvertent, but well understood, change.We plant trees in unfarmed corners and turn off the herbicides in the
headlands of our wheat, because we can see what happens when we do.But when politicians look to the skies they
seem to see nothing at all.Just empty
space and next week’s polls.As the seas
creep up, and the storm rains flow down, places like Norfolk become the battleground
of climate change.Many acres here and
in other low lying places may have to be abandoned soon as the cost of flood
and tide defences grows and grows.The
harriers and spoonbills will do well from this – but what will it really mean
if we give up this land to the sea?What
will it really mean, when we redraw the maps and the people move on?

Further down the coast seals – common and
grey – haul out on sandbanks.Never has
a creature looked so much like an inflatable pool toy.They watch us watching them.Terns and oystercatchers tend to the summer
business of parenthood, some chicks still in the nest, some running in the
water and some still inside the hard shell of their eggs.In the creeks and small river mouths boats
sit at anchor, clipped to floating buoys.One of the boats looks like a strange combination of Ark and Garden
Shed, as if the upper part of the boat has fallen on to the lower by accident.

The next day dawns summer bright and
clear.I would not have objected to a
few clouds, but the weather was set fair.Daily temperatures make the front page of the papers and people speak of
the long summers from childhood.It is
early, but not painfully so, when I walk out of the front door and flush two
wood pigeons from the Walnut tree.Fat
and loud winged, the total mass of this species out-weights any other bird in
the UK.This is the kind of thing I
carry in my head.That most domestic of
bird, the house sparrow, gathers in noisy groups on the gutters.From the trees behind the house, Jackdaws
chack to each other. In the distance, I can hear the rough cough of a tractor
engine starting. Weekend after weekend started like this for me in the past, up
early to go fishing, wondering what, if anything, would happen over the next few
hours.

With the expectation of a canvas hat, faded
down to colourlessness by the harsh Australia sun, my wardrobe runs to greens
and browns.An annoyingly bright bag is
slumped against the wall, but I know I could hide that in the bushes if needs
be.In the past I would have had a flask
of coffee with me, bitter and dark.But
something needs to be left behind.I
have been looking forward to this day for almost six months.This is the day I can go fishing. And it’s
the kind of fishing I understand: long rods, fine lines, small hooks and fresh
water.

A car rolls in from the east, with a face I
recognise, but have never seen, behind the wheel.I had spoken to John the day before, as he
battled his way through nettles towards a river, hoping for barbel. As a kid I had read the things he wrote, and
wondered what it would be like to catch that many fish; to catch fish that
big.Today, he is going to help me catch
tench, a fish that had filled many June mornings in the past.

The inside of the car is full of gear.Criss-cross rods and tackle boxes.Dozens of apparently identical yellow plastic
bags.Buckets of bait, and abandoned paper
bags that once held lunch.It is the
kind of scene produced either by an explosion or a month of continuous fishing.Thankfully, it is due to fishing.We talk as we drive down country lanes,
finding common ground in nature and fish.It wis weird to meet a stranger and to feel comfortable so fast, a
common goal and a shared vocabulary a clear advantage.From the back of the car comes the familiar
ticking of rod tips tapping together in response to bumps in the road.

The flat lands of Norfolk have not always
been as peaceful as they are today – not that long ago they were studded with
air fields that sent forth planes to protect or damage dependent on design.And the runways of the airfields were built
with gravel dug from ground; the ancient spoor or glaciers and rivers, mixed
and poured to bring forth fire and death.And in the flooded holes this left behind a gentler life now
thrives.The edges have been softened by
willow and reed, the shallows are studded with water lilies, classically
awaiting a sitting frog.And there are
fish.Hopefully there are a lot of fish.

In a wonderful example of the process beloved
of Intelligent Designers, order arises from the chaos in the back of the
car.Rods are chosen and strung with
line, hooks are tied and baited.How
many hundreds of times I have done this?I take a rod to the water’s edge and cast, and place the rod on the
rests.I tighten the line and wait.I feel a familiar combination of anticipation
and stillness, the first front and centre, the second growing by the
minute.People say that fishing is dull,
but these must be those who cannot drive without the radio and have yet to
learn the value of stillness.The line
on the rod flickers upwards, brief and small, and my hand hovers over the
handle.Nothing else happens. It was
probably a fish colliding with the filament line between reel and hook. This is
a time machine.I could be 15 again, but
my hair is shorter and my mind clearer.

A Kingfisher electric blues across the
water while a family of Great Crested Grebes fish in the shallow water to our
right.They are catching no more fish
than we are.On the other side of the
water a heron stands motionless, a grey shadow against the green bank.Terns, wonderfully white against the blue sky,
call with sharp, shrill voices and leave the scene with tiny silver fish.Somewhere a hungry youngster will be
pleased.It’s probably a good thing my
kids are not relying on me to provide a fish supper.

After an hour of near complete stillness we
move to another, smaller pond.I have no
idea what makes a lake a lake and a pond a pond, but I think this is a
pond.Under a willow tree, almost a
fishing cliché, I fish for tench.A
thick topped, red float sits in the mosaic reflection of the branches.Patches of tiny bubbles break the surface,
the signature move of my intended catch, and anticipation builds again.Small fish nibble.The float twitches and dances.I feel my hand tighten around the handle of
the rod.My feet serve as a rest for the
rod.There remains something special
about fishing with a float. The process is pure memory and deliberate
simplicity. Eventually the float lifts slightly, slides sideways and
disappears.Classic.The fish heads for the sanctuary of weeds and
I cup my hand over the reel to slow its escape.Much to my surprise this succeeds.I feel the fish circle with heavy intent.I feel the rod spring straight.The stored energy of the bent rod launches
the float back towards me.Gone.At such times there is a great need to
embrace stillness, and strangely I can.

I have said before that fishing is about more
than just catching fish.And if ever
this needs to be true it’s as I wind in the slack.Little bubbles of slime coat the line where
it rolled over the flanks of the fish. Things happen, most are of no real
consequence, many make us angry; but often there is little justified link
between the cause and the effect. I remember the anger this would have caused
in the past, as if it really mattered. A rage would have boiled up and stopped
me from seeing anything but the straightened rod and the returning float. I
rebait and recast, and once more embrace the stillness.It seems the natural thing to do. A large blue dragonfly lands on the tip of the
rod and rubs its eyes clean with its legs.It’s important to be able to see clearly.I stare at the float, a little patch of red
in green, but it stays where it is.The
moment has passed.It’s time to move on
again.

Around the corner, in a shady part of
another lake, carp can be seen cruising just below the surface, slurping down
floating goodies. A plague fish back home, here they are treated with a reverence
akin to religion.People set up
temporary shrines on the bank side, with beautiful matched sets of parallel
rods and space age bite detectors.Serious carp fishers are a breed apart, a sub-cult of fanatics in an
already fanatical team.I used to want
to be one.With the kind of sensory
perception worthy of a deity, the carp seem to be able to sense the presence of
a hook in the floating goodie attached to my line.All around my bait rubbery, extendable lips engulf
otherwise identical snacks.Eventually
my bait is sucked under and I connect with a fish.It seems rather small compared to the fish
round it.It seems a rather different
shape to the fish around it.It turns
out to be some form of hybrid, and John does not even bother to put a net under
it – he holds the line near the back and shakes the fish off.I had hoped for more from my first British
fish on the 21st century.John notices my disappointment – but he has a point!A few casts later I actually hook a carp,
which, with a kind of growing predictability, throws the hook.

How can this not feel like defeat? How can
this feel like such a genuinely splendid day, when I am, to all intents and
purposes, failing to do what I wanted to do – which is catch fish. Is it pure nostalgia?Is it the outlandish green of the vegetation,
the reflections on the water, and the birdcalls in the bushes? Is it that I can
talk about the things that are important, and in doing so come to have a better
understanding of their value?Or is it
just that I have a day to myself, to things I want to do – a rare treat for a
parent.Or is it all of these, mashed
into a day that so far has yielded almost no fish, but a highlights reel of
stories.

The brief disturbance has scattered the
other fish, and I think it’s time for a break and a bite to eat.Mallard pay us a late lunch visit and we talk
of many things.But mainly we talk of people
I only knew through their bylines in the weekly Angling Times or Mail, the
monthly Coarse Fisherman or Angler; it feels like I am being introduced to
ghosts.We leave the lake to the tricky fish and head
towards the River Welland.

Once more this is an echo of the places I
used to fish – small and out of the way.We scatter a handful of sweetcorn – opened with a butterfly-handled
opener – into two swims and wait a while.John goes in search of crayfish, an American invader that feeds the
Chubb and makes then grow fat.I sit
surrounded by tall reeds and flick a simple rig a little down stream.Once more I rest the rod on my feet, making a
mockery of the amount of gear I used to carry. The rod tip bounces over once,
and then folds round and I strike.The
fish – as yet unseen – heads for the backside vegetation on my side of the
river; if it managed to get any closer in it would have to get out of the river
and climb a tree.I don’t know who is
more surprised when I slide the net under a large chub – the fish or me.I notice that at some time between the bite
and the net I have stood in the river, and water is running out of my right
boot.It seems my mind was
elsewhere.John returns, and if it’s
possible seems even more delighted than me.The fish – the largest of this species I have ever caught – would push
5lb (maybe!).Although it would be at
home on the other side of the country, I am grinning like the Cheshire
Cat.Five minutes later and a similar sized
fish sheds the hook inches from the net.But I am still smiling.

The day ends and I return to Walnut Tree
Farm.I tell tales and spin stories from
the day.I don’t stop smiling.

In Norwich Cathedral, just a handful of
miles from where I was fishing, there is a famous sculpture of sorts.In the roof of the cloisters is a Green Man –
a face looking out from behind a wreath of leaves.Many people think these faces are a representation
of an old woodland spirit or sprite.A
mischievous face from the green past of belief:on still days when I fish, I feel that it may still be out there,
weaving magic and casting spells.

I truly believe in the saying, "you go fishing, you don't go catching". I came from a fishing family and we went regularly when I was a child, but I haven't been in years. There's just something about standing on the shore with your line in the water, with your Mom and Dad and maybe a brother scattered around the way, all enjoying the peace and quiet, and hoping for that tug and the disappearance of that float. Thanks for the memory, Stuart.

Hari OMOh my gosh - now am curious as to the dates you were there Stewart...I was at Holcombe on the 20th June... and visiting all all around Hunstanton, Heacham and inland a bit... I completely understand your mixed feelings about North Norfolk. I loved the scenery but also had a peculiar feeling of emptiness; no the word is "Hollowness" about the place. Mind you, got some great shots! Didn't get to see the seals though, but there are plenty round here. Another fabulous post!! YAM xx

I love this post Stewart! I found you at your previous post about London and now you were in Norfolk (just down the road from Lincolnshire!). Just one thing, the M52 should be the M25 (or otherwise known as the 'Road to Hell' sung by Chris Rea). I had the misfortune of using it regularly - thank goodness I don't anymore! I was at Hunstanton a couple of weeks ago a few miles from Cromer, a Victorian seaside town that has its quiet spots as well as amusements. Thanks again for a great post.

I will repeat my self but you are a great writer!Would you write books, I would read them!!As Richard puts it, it is a very interesting perspective on the country you were born in.My aussie son is leaving us today, back to Mackay where he lives on a boat... I dearly hope we can join him and his family soon!Keep well

From another who grew up fishing.. this made me smile. I spent this afternoon dragging a kayak through beautiful forest to a protected trout lake in our area. I did not fish, but paddled around the lake and admired the clear water. I very much enjoyed your angler's miscellany, Stewart.

I loved reading your post! Your red light disappointment and green light anticipation made me remember why I prefer small town traffic to that in Dallas. That's one cool old tractor and love the fishing shot.